On Beech Road 44 years ago looking for a second hand telly and electric fire

This is another of those images of the more recent past and one that plenty of people will remember.

Picture; from the collection of Lawrence Beedle, circa 1980

Paradise Walk ……… almost a lost and forgotten street of Manchester

Paradise Walk ought to be one of those twisty little byways which to misquote the poem is “half as old as time”.

Store Street, 1920 looking for Paradise Walk

It was a place I had never come across despite many happy hours wandering the area between Ducie Street and Store Street.

It was Sean Kelly who alerted me to its presence today, with “Could I suggest Paradise Walk, off Ducie Street, Andrew? It’s a sort of short cut and I suspect a lot of history......”, adding “it's been well poshed up, relatively, since around 2000. Wonder whether the Central Library archives have a photo”.

On a warm summer’s day with little else to do, I can see its attractions, because it starts as a narrow pathway sandwiched between a tall building,  before joining the towpath of the Ashton Canal and exiting by a set of steps onto Store Street.

But as delightful as the walk can be, you do have to look for it, and it’s easy to miss both starting points.  

The area in 1894

The Ducie Street entrance is almost opposite where Ducie Street joins Aqueduct Street, while access from Store Street is up a flight of stone steps beside the arch of the aqueduct which carries the canal over the road.

Still I thought I was dealing with one of those very old routes, and mused that here could be all that was left of a closed court which long ago had lost its houses.

But not so, it does not appear on the OS map for 1849, Adshead’s map of 1851, or subsequent ordinance survey maps into the 1950s.   

In 1951 at the Ducie Street end there was a Whittles Croft, which sixty years earlier had been Whittles  Croft Wharf.

And yes, once a long time ago that stretch of Ducie Street which twists away up to Pigeon Street was Whittles Croft and Mather Street. 

So I await those in possession of more recent maps to pinpoint when Paradise Walk emerged.

The area in 1851

If I had to guess, I reckon it will be sometime at the turn of the century when work was undertaken on the canal ….. but I could be wrong …… probably am wrong.

Sorry Sean.

Location; Ducie Street/Store Street

Pictures; Store Street, 1920 looking for Paradise Walk, T Brooks, m10640,courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  Ducie Street/Store Street, 1894, from the OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

 

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 18 ........... driving the coach to the Italian Lakes

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

Now it is that time of year again and we are thinking of a summer holiday.

It’s an attractive thought given that the rain is coming down like stair rods.

Of course not that we ever went far when we lived in Well Hall.

From spring till the end of the summer dad drove coaches across mainland Europe from France to Italy with an option on Belgium, Holland and Switzerland.

It was a job he had dome since the 1920s and from sometime around 1952 began talking discerning travellers on holidays, seeing the sights and getting a flavour of Brussels, Paris and Milan.

I say faraway places but for most people back in the 1950s and early 60s the Italian Lakes was far away.

All of which left me and my sisters with holidays in Derby with our grandparents.

Today, for us Italy has a special place given that half the family are Italian and so it is a natural choice most years as a place to visit.

And that of course got me thinking of the people who also lived in 294 from when it was built in 1915 till we moved settled there in the March of 1964.

The previous owners immigrated to Canada and until I have done lots more research on the other families I think Canada will be the furthest destination for any of the previous occupants.

Not that I am surprised.  Holiday opportunities for most people during the 20th century were limited and it was not till the coming of cheap air flights and package holidays that most of us could contemplate that far away break in the sun.

Location; Well Hall & Chorlton

Pictures;  Il Broletto from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road,
https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall

Eighty-six years in the story of the Rec on Beech Road

I don’t usually do then and now pictures, and certainly not without a story, but today I shall.

Here are two both from the Wilton end of the Rec.

They are separated by about 80 years, and in the interval we had a bowling green which many remember, but not me.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; on the Rec, sometime in 1900 from the Lloyd Collection and again in 1980 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 17 ........... the Gas Board

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

It is funny how the names of things stay with you, long after events have rendered them obsolete and consigned to history.

So, it is with the Gas Board, which was created just a year before I was born, and lasted until I was fully grown.

To be accurate there were twelve gas boards covering the country, and they had been created in 1948 by the Labour Government which nationalized the 1,062 privately owned and municipal gas companies.  They were  the Eastern, East Midlands, Northern, North Eastern, North Thames, North West, Scottish, Southern, South Eastern, South West, Wales, and West Midlands. Each area board was divided into geographical groups or divisions which were often further divided into smaller districts.

Ours was the South Eastern Gas Board, and here is the meter card for our house.

Not that we paid for our gas by slot meter.  Dad had switched to paying quarterly, and so this payment card belonged to one of the previous owners, who was a G. Broome.

That said I do remember the chap who came to read the meter at regular intervals, a practice which lasted well into this century.

After which we opted to read it ourselves and send the reading in online and this in turn was replaced by a device which did it for us, and now by Hive, that box of tricks which pretty much does it all.

Despite all this buzzy technology I have never quite got round to referring to our gas provider by their name, and still talk of the Gas Board.

But then I also still talk about the wireless when everyone else calls it a radio.


Location; Well Hall

Pictures; the Gas Board  Slot Meter Record Card, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall

Out to East Didsbury from Albert Square ……. on the new tram

I say the new tram, because quite clearly this wasn’t the old fashioned tall stately tram which rattled its way around the city at the start of the last century.

This was the new tram car.

The first  of which was completed in the March of 1930.  By the end of the year another eleven were in service.

In all 38 were built during the next two years, with the last of them appearing in October 1932.*

They were the Pullman, or more commonly called Pilcher, after Mr. Robert Stuart Pilcher, who took over as General Manager of Manchester Corporation Tramways in 1929.

Location; Manchester







Picture; Albert Square to East Didsbury, date unknown, from the collection of Allan Brown

*The Manchester Tramways, Yearsley, Ian & Groves Peter, 1988

Remembering the Spanish Civil War